Mass drugging suggested to halt Britain’s obesity crisis

Drugs used to treat hyperactive children, such as Ritalin, could be used to help solve Britain’s obesity crisis as new research has shown one in three severely obese adults who fail to lose weight have undiagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

Doctors behind the latest findings claim a chemical imbalance in the brain caused by undiagnosed ADHD prevents severely obese patients from having the willpower to lose weight.

And they claim once the condition had been treated with drugs such as Ritalin [it] improve[d] their dieting success dramatically.

Almost one in four people in Britain are now obese, official statistics show, and research suggests the figure could rise to one in three by 2012 because of poor diet and sedentary lifestyles.

Dr Lance Levy, from the Nutritional Disorders Clinic in Toronto studied 242 severly obese patients who had failed to lose weight in 10 years. Each patient was screened for ADHD through a series of tests and interviews. Results showed 32 per cent had a diagnosis of ADHD. They were then prescribed anti-hyperactivity drugs including Adderall, a type of amphetamine and a Ritalin-style pill called Concerta, taken once a day.

After a year of treatment, those given the drugs had lost an average of 12 per cent of their total body weight, compared to 2.7 per cent of those not given medication. Volunteers also reported feeling calmer.

Dr Levy said: “People with ADHD are more likely to develop weight problems than those without it. But obesity itself does not cause ADHD.’”

Growing numbers of adults are being diagnosed with effects including low energy levels and impulsive behaviour.

The National Obesity Forum welcomed new therapies, but said it was too early to say all obese patients should be screened for ADHD.

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Comment from Wise Up Journal:

This is how statistics and science are skewed and used, logically (1 leads to 2 leads and 2 to 3 so 3 must be true). It is common for obese people to eat a lot of junk food. Diets filled with MSG, aspartame and other man made chemicals in crisps, soft drinks, chewing gum etc… cause hyperactivity (lost of concentration) followed by fatigue.These people are diagnosed as having ADHD along with people who do have neurological problems.

This research unsurprisingly finds attention problems among a large number of obese adults, but then spins it out to suggest the solution is to give them more man-made drugs. It finds Ritalin causes slight weight loss. So does smoking cigarettes. The research said that “volunteers also reported feeling calmer”, that is because the drug passives them. Children who do not conform in school are recommended to be put on Ritalin. Thankfully Martin Luther King was not born in the 21st century. MSG, aspartame and other man-made chemicals coupled with a low amount of nutrients in a diet actually increases the desire to eat as the body looks for real food.

There is good science and bad science. You can do a study of people on anti-depresants and produce statictics that sad people have trouble sleeping. Most people on anti-depresants take sleeping pills because anti-depresants cause insomnia in most people. Statistics can be easily skewed to support a pharmaceutical or political propaganda scheme and sound “creditable” enough for the public to believe it. People in Nazi Germany believed in the science and statistics of Eugenics as much as people today believe in certain statistics and theories claimed to be science.